Choose Your Fate: Doctor Who Edition

Wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey events and inexplicable phenomena have been occurring in your local neighborhood. A British police box lands in front of you, and a hyper-active man in some form of a suit leaps out. You assist him in solving the unsolvable mystery. He invites you to join him on an adventure across space and time.

Do you:

A. Go on the adventure, change history, see more than you’ve ever imagined existed, perhaps ride a dinosaur, while also facing death and risking your own existence.

B. Accept his jelly-babies and tell him, “Thank you, but I’ll stay here. If there are any other wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey events and inexplicable phenomena in my neighborhood and natural time, please give me a ring. I’d be glad to help.”

C. Run!!!!!

To assist you in choosing your option, below I’ve compiled a list of the Doctor’s Companions, their journeys, and their fates. There is an excellent infographic that covers the entire series. However, for the sake of brevity, this list only includes

1. Multi-episode main companions

2. Companions from 2005-Present

It does not include: Parents, friends, or significant others of main companions, except for Rory Williams, who is grouped with Amelia Pond.

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE NEW TO THE SERIES

The Companions

Rose Tyler

Introduction: Working as a shop girl in London, she is attacked by live manikins and rescued by the Doctor.

The Journey: Over the course of 2 seasons, the Doctor reunites Rose with her deceased father, Rose sees all of time and space through the TARDIS, and a romance between her and the Doctor ensues. She outlives the 9th Doctor, and travels with the more age-appropriate 10th Doctor. She also crosses dimensions, and returns for a final hurrah.

Her Fate: At first, tragic. In the fight to save the world, she is trapped in an alternate dimension, never to see the Doctor she loves again. However, a few years later, she somehow dimension-hops and, long story short, lives happily ever after with the half-human/half-time lord/pseud0 clone of the 10th Doctor (See Donna Noble).

On a scale of 1-5 (1 = A fairy tale happily ever after, 5 = watching all four Shakespearean tragedies back-to-back,) this is a 2. If her story were to end with the original exit, it would be a 4.

Martha Jones

Introduction: Aliens have taken over the hospital. Martha is a medical student. She and the Doctor unite, and save the hospital, and the world!

The Journey: As Martha pines over the apparently studly 10th Doctor, she journeys with him over time and space. She even helps him remember who he is when his memory is jogged and he’s stuck as a school teacher.

Her Fate: After spending a year as a guerrilla heroine, spreading the Doctor’s name so a timey-wimey shock-wave-thing can rescue the Doctor, she decides to forgo future adventures and instead settle down and finish medical school. However, she later joins Torchwood and UNIT, going off to other alien-tastic adventures.

Scale: 2 -She goes on to marry Rose’s ex-boyfriend, have adventures, and lets go of the Doctor.

Donna Noble

Introduction: Donna begins as a bride accidentally transported onto the TARDIS right after The Doctor has tragically lost Rose. After a Christmas Special parts them, along with Martha’s run as a companion, the Doctor and Donna reunite while investigating an inexplicable phenomena in her town.

The Journey: Acting as the Doctor’s platonic BFF, Donna helps reconnect the Doctor with his humanity, while being the feisty, strong-headed woman she is. She brings fun, and wonder to the universe, and experiences several alternate realities.

Her Fate: Through timey-wimey regenerative things, touches the Doctor’s hand, thus creating a human-time-lord-hybrid-clone-thing, and also opening her mind to the full and complete knowledge and vision of the Doctor. However, her brain cannot handle all of this information and begins to overheat. To save her, the Doctor removes all memories of him, leaving her with a blank in her life for the period of a year. Later, her grandfather helps the Doctor, and the Doctor leaves her a winning Lottery ticket for her wedding to some random nice guy.

Scale: 3.5 – While her ending is happy, she also loses a good portion of her life and the memories of her own greatness. Also, if she ever remembers the Doctor, her brain will melt.

Amy Pond and Rory Williams

Introduction: Amy is nine, and assists a newly regenerated Doctor with stabilizing – this involves fish fingers and custard. Years later, the Doctor reappears, and assists Amy and Rory in defeating Prisoner Zero (In a hospital, similar to where he meets Martha), and thus ensues various adventures.

The Journey: The Doctor goes from Amy’s childhood imaginary friend, to crush, to fatherish-brotherish figure, to son-in-law. When Amy develops a crush, the Doctor counteracts it by pulling Rory, her fiance, and later husband, into the adventure. While Amy dives in head first, Rory looks at things with the panic and wonder of the everyman. River Song jumps in and out to add some epic spice to things. Convoluted storylines occur with Timey-Wimey adventureness (See Their Fate below), all culminating in Rory, Amy, and River becoming the Doctor’s family.

Their Fate: Amy and Rory end up in a time-pocket-bubble-thingy in a film-noiresque New York, never able to see the Doctor again.

Scale: 4. This isn’t a 5 only because Amy and Rory end up together in New York City. However, given Rory’s multiple deaths, Amy’s death as “The Girl Who Waited,” the abduction of their only child who ends up being incarcerated for murdering the Doctor, who she is married to…, and Amy growing up without parents due to the crack in her wall, and then her parents reappearing, and the universe being destroyed in a paradox twic. And then, after all this, Amy and Rory can never see friends, family, the Doctor, or Rory’s super cool dad again. That’s pretty tragic.

Clara Oswin Oswald

Introduction: She’s a girl trapped in a Dalek prison. She’s a girl who crash landed on a Dalek prison and then was turned into a Dalek. She’s a barmaid in Victorian England. She’s a nanny in Victorian England. She’s dead. She’s alive. She’s in modern day and is about to meet the Doctor. She’s Soufle Girl. She’s an impossibility.

The Journey: To be begun in Part 2 of Season 7.

Her Fate: She’s died at least twice, but we’ll see…

Scale: So far, 4 – While there is hope, but, as mentioned before, she’s died twice.

Side Note: My sister Natalie’s design on Threadless closes on Wednesday March 20. A vote for her design is a vote for awesome!

UPDATE TO SIDE NOTE: Here’s a new design by Natalie on Threadless.com. I think this one’s cooler than the previous one. There are 6 days for voting. Check it out!

Which companion is your favorite? Do you keep fish fingers and custard on hand just in case? What planet or species would you want to visit? Which Doctor would you want to go with? Are you as excited about I am about the new, upcoming Doctor Who episodes?

This is great! I am watching all the episodes again and just finished season one. My husband and I first discovered the Doctor in the late eighties/early nineties through reruns on PBS. We really enjoy the new series and so do our kids. I really don’t know if I would run away with the Doctor since I have a family but I probably would invite him over for tea. 🙂

I’m so out-of-the-loop with Dr. Who. My favourite companion is Ace from the 80’s, but only because that’s the last time I watched the show. I know I’d love the rest of the series and that I’m crazy for not watching it, but I also get a little overly nostalgic about time travel-type stuff… I get kind of sad when characters no longer recollect their adventures… or when alternate realities/paradoxes override an adventure/relationship… or when characters move on to new things.

That said, I’d go on the adventure. Growing up, I spent enough time wishing for fairytales/fantasies to be real… it would be lame to cop out if one was actually presented.

I feel like an idiot, because I’ve still barely watched Doctor Who. A ton of it is on Netflix, and I started with the 2005 reboot. And then it got to David Tenant, who I really liked. But I just got off track. There’s so much it’s daunting and makes me nervous to think about.

Have you gone back and watched a ton of the old stuff? I’m a huge comic / movie nerd. But I feel like this is a giant black hole missing from my repertoire, causing me to lose street cred. (you know how important that is in nerd jail).